BRAVE PIONEERS

2011, Oil on Linen, 90 x 168cm

In the decades following the Second World War, car ownership for all gradually moved from being a dream to a reality. As vehicles become more affordable, the numbers changed from one in five in 1953 to one in three in 1962 until finally by the 1970’s, there was full saturation; no longer a necessity, ownership had evolved as a right.

In the fight for their customers’ hearts and minds, the manufactures’ main weapon was the liberalised dream. Cars were sold as more than machines, they promised independence, sexual expression, freedom of movement, the lure of the unexplored, and a physical manifestation of personal identity. It was a heady time when expansion seemed limitless and around every corner, open roads awaited.

It was a pity then that few stopped to think what would happen to them all when, inevitably, the engines were turned off. Combined, all the cars in Australia consume more than 168,000,000m2 of parking space, or morethan one and a half times the land area of Paris.